It’s going to rain like never before in Australia come March. Thick cloud, fog, maybe snow. Fate has been tempted - Stargazing Live is going on tour!

I’m never sure how much syndication this gets outside the UK, but for the seventh season Professor Brian Cox and Dara Ó Briain will be hosting the groovy little sister to the BBC’s long running Sky at Night astronomy show.

Advertisement

It is event telly, taking over the box for several nights of primetime fun. At the core, it encourages folk to get out and watch the skies, check out those stars and planets for themselves. If they can, you know, allowing for being assaulted by everything the elements can muster.

This time, the celestial TV event of the year is heading to Australia - to astonish and amaze with a whole new view of our universe. Cox and Ó Briain have been dragged from the comfort of the studio, to bring live stargazing from the dirt and dust of the Australian Outback.

For three nights their camp is on a mountain in Warrumbungle, home to the spectacular Siding Spring Observatory, and its 40 plus telescopes with the best view of the galaxy from anywhere in the world.

Advertisement

“March is the perfect time to reveal the Milky Way as we’ve never seen it before,” say Auntie Beeb. “Around their camp fire, Brian and Dara will share haunting tales of Aboriginal astronomy, the very latest on the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way that could one day consume our galaxy, and the daring of meteorite-mad bounty-hunters searching for space rocks in the Australian bush. They’ll reveal why everything looks upside down, down-under and what a holiday might be like on our nearest earth-like planet.”